The second time I stalked Harper was sort of a revolutionary event for me. I could no longer deny that I was doing something wrong. I''d purposely driven to her home and sat outside, in my car, waiting to see her. I was waiting to observe her. On the passenger seat of the car was my notebook, the one that I''d been recording my memories of her in. Now, I could record everything she did.


    After hours and hours of watching her from the street, I had almost filled the entire notebook. My hand and wrist hurt pretty bad and even though I had all this information, there was something missing. Photos. I needed to buy a camera. So I hurried to the closest store that sold cameras, a Walmart to be exact, and I returned to that same spot that I''d been in all day. I flipped the switch on the top of it, by the shutter button, and fooled around with it until I was confident with my photo-taking abilities. By then it was almost dark and the sun was setting behind me. I angled the camera toward her living room window, with my finger ready to hit that button and take that first picture of her. But then, a pang of guilt. I couldn''t do it.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    I wasn''t at my nephew''s soccer game. I wasn''t taking my niece to the zoo to see the gorillas. I was taking pictures of an innocent woman. One that had no idea that I''d been sitting out there for hours, spying on her. I felt guilt and remorse. And before I knew it, I had sped off and was already in my driveway. My hands were shaking and my breath was heavy. I couldn''t understand my conscience.


    That day, I had learned tons of new information about her. I learned that her favorite cereal is Coco Puffs. I learned that she loves to paint. And she''s good at it too. I learned that her favorite show is Criminal Minds. I learned that she spends almost no time on her phone. But on the contrary, she spends most of her time on her laptop. I bet it''s just a wealth of information, all about the life of Harper Torres. I fantasized about what I might find. But what I learned, most importantly, was that I still felt guilt.


    I''ll give you one guess as to how long that lasted.